Chapter 8

"Someone should talk to him."

"He's sittin' right over there. Be my guest."

"Unless I'm mistaken, I believe you are the someone he has in mind."

"Forget it."

"You're one of his oldest friends."

"What's your point?"

"He'll listen to you."

An indelicate snort. "When pigs fly."

"You must admit you and our esteemed leader share a great deal of history. Surely that gives you some leverage?"

"I'll tell you what it gives me. It gives me the smarts to know that when Chris Larabee digs in his heels ain't nobody gonna make him move. The man's got more pure cussedness in his little finger than most do in their whole body."

Chris lifted his head from the cradle of his hands and glared at the men. "I tell you what else he's got--ears. You three can't whisper for shit."

Buck stood and sauntered over, J.D. and Ezra on his heels. "Well, hell, pard. We'll just bring our little parlay to you--you bein' the key topic of conversation."

"Mighty considerate of you."

"Chris--"

"No." Chris glared at J.D. and Ezra. "And before you open your mouths, no to you too."

"Nate said--"

"Nate worries like an old woman. I've been knocked on the head enough times to know when it's serious--it's not." Chris stared at the door to the trauma room. He could just make out a flurry of activity through the small pane of glass.

"Chris, you're...um..." J.D. took in the nervous glances of the other waiting room occupants. "Your clothes are covered in blood."

He snapped his head around. "Were you listening to Nathan? Vin's heart stopped twice on the way here. Why the fuck should I care about clothes?"

"Perhaps because they make you look like a deranged serial killer to the other occupants of this waiting room. A misconception your current behavior does little to disabuse," Ezra murmured.

"Translation: You're scaring the hell outta everyone," Buck added.

"I understood what he said."

"Then stop being a jackass to the people who just want to help you."

Anger flared white-hot inside Chris, quickly dying when he read the affection underlying Buck's rebuke. He ran his fingertips over the rusty blotches splattering his tee shirt and pants, and suddenly he was back in the cellar, feeling the warm stickiness of Vin's blood against his skin, hearing each ragged gasp for air, smelling the rich, coppery odor. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could still taste the metallic tang on his lips.

Warmth covered his knee and Chris opened his eyes to Buck's compassionate gaze. "You're running on fumes, pard. You need a shower, a hot meal, and at least four hours of sleep."

"I'm not going anywhere until I know he's going to be all right." The words came out harsher than he'd intended, and he gentled his tone. "I'm wearing his blood, Buck. I've breathed my own life into his body. Do you really think I could leave him now?"

Buck looked away, working his jaw. "You've got to be the most pigheaded bastard God put on this planet. But you sure do have your moments."

"He'll be all right." J.D. made the pronouncement with the naive certainty that alternately amused Chris and drove him nuts.

Ezra slid into the chair beside him. "Our Mr. Tanner is nothing if not tenacious. Though his situation is grim, I have the utmost confidence he'll eventually be restored to us in perfect health."

"Damn, Ezra, why couldn't you just say he's too stubborn to die?" Buck slapped Chris's leg and stood.

The doors to the trauma room burst open and Vin was wheeled out, a variety of medical personnel clustered around the gurney. Chris caught a quick glimpse of his friend's chalk-white face and a tangle of tubes and wires before he disappeared into an elevator.

Nathan halted Chris's attempt to follow with a hand to the center of his chest. "Let 'em go, Chris. They're taking him up to surgery."

"How is he?"

Nathan shook his head. "It's not good. The bullet clipped a piece of his lung. Between that and a chest cavity full of blood, his lung collapsed and he went into full respiratory arrest. They got him on a ventilator; right now he can't breathe for himself. They need to remove the bullet, repair the lung, and suture the chest tube in place."

Chris swallowed, his mouth desert dry. "Nathan is he, ah...is he going to make it?"

"I can't answer that. Dr. Callaway's one of the best cardio-pulmonary surgeons in the state, but Vin lost a lot of blood and he's real weak. He may not make it through surgery, and even if he does, infection could kill him."

"You're acting like he's already dead," J.D. said, arms folded across his chest. "Vin's tough; he's a fighter. He needs us to believe in him, not write him off as a lost cause."

Nathan rounded on the boy. "Did I say I was giving up? I want Vin to make it just as much as you do, but wishin' ain't gonna make it so. This is the real world, J.D., and in the real world folks die from injuries a lot less severe than Vin's. All we can do is wait. And pray." He looked around. "Speaking of prayer--where's Josiah?"

"He took the kid over to Sherry in DCFS. Said he'd come by as soon as the boy was settled," Buck said.

Nathan frowned at Chris. "You get that head wound looked at?"

"I'm fine."

"Chris, how many times I got to tell ya, a blow to the head is nothin' to mess with! You could wind up--"

"What is it about 'I'm fine' that you all find so impossible to understand? I've got a headache--that's all. I'm not the one bleeding into my chest. I'm not the one who can't breathe on his own. I'm not the one who might... Shit!" Chris stalked across the room and out the automatic doors until he was standing in the ambulance bay, breathing hard.

Damn it, Vin, don't you die on me. You die on me and I'll never forgive you.

The door whirred softly and a moment later he felt Buck at his back. His lips curved in spite of his grief. That was right where Buck always stood, through thick and thin, good times and bad. Chris had grown to more than just expect it. He depended on it.

They stood in silence for a long time. Chris turned his face into the sun, letting the breeze ruffled his hair. He thought about Vin's passion for the outdoors, the way his whole face lit up when he rode Peso into the hills or hiked a particularly difficult trail or watched a sunset. It hurt to know that passion had roots in a dark closet. That his empathy for the street kids in Purgatorio sprang from a childhood of loneliness and despair.

"How can anyone hurt a child?" He hadn't really intended to put voice to the thought, and it hung there, oddly, in the silence.

If he was puzzled by the question, Buck didn't comment. He shuffled his feet and sighed. "Guess it all depends. Some are just pure evil, no two ways about it. Some, well, I guess they're so full of pain themselves it just spills onto others."

"It's a crazy, messed-up world when a son of a bitch like Raymond Sinclair is given a gutsy kid like Jonah." And my son is taken away.

Buck's gaze was sharp, as if he'd heard Chris's thoughts. "Way I figure it, we each touch a lot of souls during our lifetime. Don't have to be kin for it to be something special. Jonah, Vin--just 'cause Adam's gone, Chris, don't mean you haven't made a difference."

Chris swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "You've got to be the most pigheaded bastard God put on this planet. But you sure do have your moments."

Buck's grin was as warm as the sunshine beating down on Chris's head. "Second-most pigheaded. But who's counting?" He gripped the back of Chris's neck. "Now let's get to work on that list I mentioned earlier."

It took Chris's weary brain a moment to process Buck's words. "I already told you--I'm not going anywhere until I know Vin's going to be all right."

"I'm not askin' you to. Ezra's picking up some food, J.D. went to get you clean clothes, and Nate arranged for you to shower and grab a few winks in the doctor's lounge."

"Buck--"

"He's gonna be in surgery for hours, pard. It's after that he'll need you. You ain't gonna be any good to him covered in blood and about to keel over from exhaustion."

He couldn't argue with Buck's logic, and he was too tired to try. Truth was, it felt damn good to let go and allow someone else to run the show for a while. Chris let the tension flow from his shoulders, nodding. "All right. You win."

Buck guided him back through the sliding doors. "Not bad for the second-most pigheaded bastard on the planet."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chris hated the ICU. Everything was washed of sound and color, from the muffled whisper of the respirator and the nurses' crepe soles to the sterile white walls and Vin's too pale face. The chair was too hard, the lights too bright, and the clear-walled cubicle left him feeling as exposed as a bug under glass.

He sighed and curled his fingers more firmly around the warm, limp hand. Vin, at least, was oblivious to his surroundings. Dr. Callaway was keeping him sedated, giving his body time to rest and regroup until he could grow strong enough to breathe on his own.

Listing his condition as critical, Callaway had warned Chris that Vin surviving the surgery was only a first step; he faced a long and uncertain road to recovery. Though they'd successfully removed the bullet and re-inflated his right lung, the chest tube was still producing bloody drainage and he was showing the beginnings of a serious infection.

"Hey, Mr. Larabee."

Cara, Vin's night nurse, hung a fresh unit of blood, discarding the empty bag. Tugging his chart from a pocket on the end of the bed, she recorded Vin's pulse and respiration, examined the chest tube and catheter outputs, and checked his temperature with an aural thermometer, her touch efficient but gentle.

Chris sat up straighter when he saw a line form between her brows. "How's he doing?"

"He's holding his own."

Chris scowled at the vague answer. "Cara."

She hugged the clipboard to her chest, the dimples in her cheeks betraying her attempt to look stern. "Mr. Larabee, we've been over this. I'm Vin's nurse; Dr. Callaway will update you on--"

"Cara."

She blew out a long puff of air. "You must be hell to work for."

He grinned, but it slid quickly off his face. "Please, level with me--and call me Chris."

Cara smoothed a lock of hair off Vin's forehead. "He's doing better than we expected, but not as well as we'd hoped."

"Meaning?"

"You're a cop, Chris. You know how serious a gunshot wound like Vin's would be even if he'd been rushed immediately to the hospital. But delay treatment for almost 18 hours, and add to that the filthy conditions... "

"But you're giving him those high-powered antibiotics." Chris tilted his head toward the I.V. line. "Won't that take care of the infection?"

She nodded. "It's just taking some time to find the right drug," she explained. "The problem is that in his weakened state, Vin doesn't have the reserves he needs to heal and combat an infection." She replaced the chart and brushed her hand against Chris's arm. "He's a fighter, that's obvious, or he never would have made it this far. Have faith."

Chris watched, bemused, as she returned to the nurses' desk. Have faith. Cara had no idea he'd lost his faith in a fiery explosion over four years ago. If faith was what it took to bring Vin back, well, Chris was the wrong man for the job.

Except...

Somehow, when Vin slipped so effortlessly into Chris's world, faith crept in behind him. And had been making itself more at home with every passing day. Faith in his teammates--allowing them to be a part of his life, not just as coworkers, but trusted friends. Faith in Vin--allowing him into a heart he'd vowed would remain closed forever. And faith in himself--that he deserved to receive love and happiness. And that he was capable of giving both in return.

And now here he was, struggling to remain standing while once again the ground crumbled from beneath his feet. All faith seemed to do was screw him over every chance it got.

Chris stood and leaned on the bedrail, touching the backs of his fingers to Vin's cheek and frowning at the heat. Vin's normally bronzed skin was so pale Chris could see the tracery of fine blue veins, and there were bruised crescents beneath his eyes. His only movement was the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as the ventilator pumped oxygen in and out of his lungs. He looked like a battered wind-up toy, not the strong, vibrant man Chris considered his closest friend.

A cup of coffee floated into his line of vision. Startled, Chris looked into Josiah's smiling face.

"That pretty little nurse said we could each have five minutes." He placed the cup into one of Chris's hands and a sandwich into the other. "Thought you could do with a bit of sustenance."

"Thanks." Sipping the hot liquid, Chris set the food on the tray table.

Josiah moved to the opposite side of the bed. Chris watched as he placed a large hand on Vin's forehead and closed his eyes.

"I hope He hears you."

Opening his eyes, Josiah quirked an eyebrow. "He hears all of us, Chris. I don't have a corner on the market."

"If that's true, then He's not paying attention to what I've got to say." He shook his head. "Or He just doesn't like me very much."

"And what exactly gives you that idea?"

Chris scowled, irritated that Josiah was being deliberately obtuse. "He took everything from me, Preacher. Everything that mattered. There were days I couldn't find reason to draw another breath, let alone get out of bed. He took them, but He wouldn't take me."

"You wanted Him to."

The quiet words cut deep. Chris recalled the endless nights spent in a bottle, the days of reckless, risk-taking behavior. He couldn't bring himself to take his own life. But he'd done everything to insure something else would.

"Yeah. I guess I did." He looked at the still form in the bed. "When I read Vin's file, saw the way life had knocked him down again and again... Guess I figured if he could keep standing and dusting himself off, then so could I."

Chris paced to the window and stared at the twinkling city lights. "And now here I am, back on the floor again. And I'm damn tired of being God's punching bag, Josiah."

"Chris... Have you ever considered maybe you're the one who's not paying attention?"

Chris narrowed his eyes but Josiah held up a hand before he could speak.

"I don't presume to understand why God allows terrible things to happen to good people." Josiah smiled. "Guess if I did, I'd be God. But I do know that sometimes it's the pain in our lives that's the strongest tie binding us together. If you hadn't lost Sarah and Adam, do you honestly think you'd have gained what you have with Vin?"

Chris opened his mouth to argue, but found he couldn't. Shared loss had drawn him to Vin, an understanding that went beyond words. It bound them together in a friendship deeper than any he'd ever known.

"He's better off for knowing you, Chris," Josiah said, coming to stand beside him. "And so are you. You said you were asking God for a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Don't you think maybe He was listening after all?"

Chris's eyes burned. "And if in His infinite wisdom He sees fit to take Vin?"

"Then I guess you just keep listening." Josiah squeezed his shoulder and walked to the door, pausing. "That's where the faith comes in."

Faith.

Chris folded into the chair and watched Vin sleep. Everyone, it seemed, wanted him to hold onto faith. He just wasn't sure he had any left.

Continued in Chapter 9